Be honest: do your customers trust your sales team, or do they have a sneaking suspicion that you are trying to sell them something?
While your company’s goal is certainly to make a sale, your sales team’s broader goal is to create satisfied customers who trust you and your products and who will return to you again and again.
If your sales techniques aren’t gaining your business the trust you need, how can you change those methods to earn prospective customers’ confidence and turn your sales leads into a long-term customer base?
Excellent customer service is what all businesses want and that ultimately starts with ensuring you can demonstrate to your prospective customers from the first contact that you are not just trying to make a quick sale.
Encourage Research First
When you’re training your sales team, focus on the need to research before they take the plunge into a sales call.
If an employee is going to call a sales lead, create a firm foundation for trust-building beforehand.
Train them to do research on your leads business, its needs, and the individual you are calling.
Learn how your lead likes to work, how to provide that person with information, and how much they like to manage the purchasing process.
When your salespeople call with some depth of understanding, this will help them build instant rapport with your lead.
Be Strong
As you develop your sales team, let them know what their strong, clear message should be.
Your team should let sales leads know why they’re calling, but they don’t need to be overly sales-focused at first.
The strongest sales pitch is one that tells a lead that your company is there to learn more about their business’s needs and that you have experience meeting the needs of others in similar circumstances.
Be Knowledgeable
If your leads have questions, they need to be able to turn to your company for answers.
Your sales team must know your products inside and out, and they need to have an excellent understanding of your industry just as well.
Hire and promote those who have the background to talk confidently about your business and demonstrate that you and others at your company have the skills to ensure that your customers have an exceptional experience.
Be Personable
Sometimes a big push gets you nowhere.
Instead of focusing on the sale, your sales team should be building consensus with your prospects.
If your company has worked with others in their industry, make sure your team can talk about how they helped those other organisations.
If you share a common interest, weave that into the conversation.
As your employees get to know theirs, you’ll build trust for future sales.
Learn about each of your sales leads before you call.
Lend an Ear
Listening to your customer’s needs is just as important as talking about your product or services.
By listening, your sales staff gains new information that will help them shape their discussion and determine whether your products are a fit for your lead’s requirements.
Encourage your salespeople to match their vocal style to their prospect’s style to ensure that they’re not moving too quickly or speaking too loudly.
You can read more about this here: ‘Are You Listening To Your Customers’.
Let Go
What happens if your lead’s needs just don’t match what your company can offer?
While your employees may feel like they need to make the sale, give them permission to let it go if it’s not a fit.
Encourage your sales staff to be honest and help your prospect determine whether your product is a good fit.
When you’re straightforward about what your company can and cannot do, you build trust.
Trust Can Win You Referrals
One of the easiest ways to develop new business is by referrals.
The difficulty is getting them. If you’d like to generate quality referrals, your customers need to feel like you not only give them a high-quality service — but they need to know that they can trust you.
Once you’ve built that trust, you can create new sales leads because your customers will generate word-of-mouth referrals for your business, and you can also ask for introductions to new contacts via LinkedIn.
Turn your sales results from so-so to stellar.
If you’re a tech company working to gain a stronger footing in your B2B sales results, talk to us and discover how we can help.
